Republican Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger said Sunday that President Donald Trump's refusal to sign a $900 billion relief package Congress passed last week and allow critical benefits to lapse for millions of jobless Americans "shows the chaos of the whole thing."
Kinzinger is one of several members of the President's party urging him to sign the bill in the final days of his presidency to deliver much-needed aid to Americans ravaged by the coronavirus pandemic.
"We passed it because this was the agreed upon number," Kinzinger, an outspoken critic of Trump, told CNN's Dana Bash on "State of the Union" Sunday of the bipartisan package.
The Covid-19 relief legislation, which had arrived at Mar-a-Lago by Friday to await Trump's signature, would extend the number of weeks people can stay on two key pandemic unemployment programs and increase weekly benefits by $300 for all through mid-March.
During negotiations with Congress, Trump largely sat on the sidelines but after the relief package's passage last week, the President has complained that the provision included to give up to $600 in direct payments to jobless individuals who qualify is not enough. Trump wants to send out $2,000 stimulus checks.
Kinzinger, who dismissed Trump's baseless claims about electoral fraud earlier this month and warned his Republican colleagues of dire consequences if they failed to do the same, took issue with Trump's inability to speak up sooner about the $2,000 checks.
edition.cnn.com/2020/12/27/politics/republicans-trump-relief-bill-adam-kinzinger-cnntv/index.html
